Colorado Avalanche fans hold up signs during the game January 24, 2013 at Pepsi Center. The Colorado Avalanche defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-0.(John Leyba, The Denver Post)

The Hockey News delivers a hard cross check to the reputation of Avalanche fans in their latest issue. According to the THN algorithms of several categories, Avs fans rank 27th in the NHL.

I know a lot of these listicles are done these days to draw attention to their media entities, so take it for what it’s worth. But the Bible of Hockey says Avs fans deserve this lowly ranking for, among other things, the obvious one: poor attendance. The Avs were third overall in the league last year and ranked 22nd in attendance.

Things aren’t any better this year. In fact, Avs attendance has decreased from last year so far. The average paid attendance last year was 16,295. This year, it’s 15,242. A drop of 1,000 a game. Not good.

Columbus Blue Jackets’ James Wisniewski tries to slow down the Colorado Avalanche’s Ryan O’Reilly (90) during the third period of an NHL hockey game, Tuesday, April 1, 2014, in Columbus, Ohio. (Mike Munden, The Associated Press)

I’m finally starting to embrace a little more the FancyStats of hockey. I said, a little. I personally think hockey is the toughest of the four major sports to quantify by advanced statistics. But the advanced stat of Corsi makes sense as a pretty good predictor of team success. Corsi basically takes all shots on goal, missed shots and blocked shots and add them all up. The higher the number, the better you are as a “puck possession” team, the theory goes, and the better puck possession team you are, the more of a winner you are.

Fenwick is essentially the same stat as Corsi, minus the blocked shots.

A look at the latest numbers for Corsi and Fenwick shows the Avalanche pretty far down the list of teams doing well in the categories. In the stat of “Corsi for percentage, 5-on-5, score close”, the Avs rank 25th in the league, at 47.5 percent. That essentially means, based on shots and attempted/missed/blocked shots, the opponents are possessing the puck the other 52.5 percent of the time.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.